Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 6 July 2023
Public Accounts Committee
Financial Statements 2021: Inland Fisheries Ireland
9:30 am
Mr. Francis O'Donnell:
I will provide context around that. I have stated at an earlier discussion on this matter that it was a mistake and it should not have happened. I repeat that now for the record. There is correspondence around this. From what I can gather, the thought process at the time was that the property was for sale and it was going to be very difficult to get anybody to lease it. One of the issues was that if somebody leased the property from IFI and the organisation was fortunate enough subsequently to sell the property, the leasee would get ten weeks' notice to vacate it. The difficulty with that is there was a significant risk for the leasee if customers or clients were booked to stay in the property.
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